upon Dr. Riccabocca, the Machiavellian sagacity with which the Italian
had counted upon securing the services of Lenny Fairfield was speedily
and triumphantly established by the result. No voice of the parson's,
charmed he ever so wisely, could persuade the peasant-boy to go and ask
pardon of the young gentleman, to whom, because he had done as he was
bid, he owed an agonizing defeat and a shameful incarceration; and, to
Mrs. Dale's vexation, the widow took the boy's part. She was deeply
offended at the unjust disgrace Lenny had undergone in being put in the
stocks; she shared his pride, and openly approved his spirit. Nor was it
without great difficulty that Lenny could be induced to resume his
lessons at school,--nay, even to set foot beyond the precincts of his
mother's holding. The point of the school at last he yielded, though
sullenly; and the parson thought it better to temporize as to the more
unpalatable demand. Unluckily, Lenny's apprehensions of the mockery that
awaited him in the merciless world of his village were realized. Though
Stirn at first kept his own counsel the tinker blabbed the whole affair.
And after the search instituted for Lenny on the fatal night, all attempt
to hush up what had passed would have been impossible. So then Stirn
told his story, as the tinker had told his own; both tales were very
unfavourable to Leonard Fairfield. The pattern-boy had broken the
Sabbath, fought with his betters, and been well mauled into the bargain;
the village lad had sided with Stirn and the authorities in spying out
the misdemeanours of his equals therefore Leonard Fairfield, in both
capacities of degraded pattern-boy and baffled spy, could expect no
mercy,--he was ridiculed in the one, and hated in the other.

It is true that, in the presence of the schoolmaster and under the eye of
Mr. Dale, no one openly gave vent to malignant feelings; but the moment
those checks were removed, popular persecution bcgan.